


Oh Brother

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Brothers, Drunk Kisses, First Kiss, Getting Together, Incest, M/M, Skinny Dipping, Voyeurism, teenage drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-08-23 14:09:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16620494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: Neither of you speak, but you pull the sheets down and he clambers in. This time you lie face to face, the moon causing his hair to glimmer. His breath smells like cinnamon toothpaste, and faintly, rum. It’s not a pleasant taste against your tongue, but you lick into his mouth.





	Oh Brother

**Author's Note:**

> Age of consent is 16 in the Uk.

Arthur is gentle, soft. He is muscles beneath youth, still silken, still finding firmness. You know better, know the harm your hands could do, know the sins of your eyes as you linger in the doorway. You don’t touch, not yourself, not his flesh, as you watch.

His hips ebb and flow, the harsh tides of a stormy sea even as he screws his eyes shut and cries out _, “Move, Gwaine!”_

This is not your show to watch, not your love to enjoy, but sometimes, _sometimes_ , you think he knows. He tilts his head, rest his cheek upin the pillow, and his blue eyes drift to the door, to the crack where you hover. He smiles, sleepy, a little sated, and always, _always_ thats when his face flushes and his hips spasm and everything in his body tightens.

If his bedmate ever notices, ever cares, you don’t linger to find out.

\---

You remember sixteen well. It was not nearly as lucrative in the lust department for you as it is for your brother. But it makes sense you think. 8 years ago you were skin and bones, loosely stitched elbows attached to a head with ears that took flight in March’s gusts. You were moon hued, with bruises under cotton sky eyes, and feet that, despite their size, never managed to carry you gracefully.

Your brother though, stole the sun’s golden light and painted his skin. God crafted his limbs from sturdy oaks, and fit them together with strong silver thread. He painted his eyes with liquid from the clearest beach, and He breathed a dancer’s grace over his feet.

You’ve never hated him, this perfect specimen of boyhood and manhood. This child, with spots still marring his chin, and skin peeling from shoulders after a day spent too long in the pool.

You’ve never hated him, but you’ve never noticed him quite so much either.

He’s never noticed you before.

\---

He’s everywhere now. Now that you’ve returned. That your adult life went up in smoke around you and you’re forced to slink back to this sleepy little cottage in this sleepy little village.

Your mother couldn’t be more thrilled to have you back. You think your brother might have enjoyed being the man about the house, but he also seems relieved to share the burden of the chores.

He hovers though, in your space, your routine. He invades even the pretense of privacy the curtain in your doorway provides. He is _everywhere_ and your mother thinks it is endearing. You don’t think it is the worst thing that has ever happened.

Except that it is, because his fingers, _dear God_ _those fingers_ , always manage to trace the divots in your arm, the plans of your back. He takes you to the public pool, “For old times sake, Merls.”

He takes you to the pool and his fingers, sweaty and sticky in the way teen boys’ are, caress your skin with suncream. He moves in slow, pointed circles over your shoulders, your hips, the small of your back.

You stand up, shove him away, move quickly to the edge.

When you jump, when you break the surface of the cold water, you wonder if you can stay there beneath the chlorine until everything up abobs makes sense.

Eventually the burn in your eyes matches the burn in your lungs and you resurface. He’s there, a sly glance, a soft smirk, a forefinger that traces your waistband beneath the water.

No one notices, but you stay in the deep end until you prune and the air is freezing.

\---

The first time he slips into your room, his eye is purple and his nose bloody and his lip swollen. You don’t say anything as you hand him a dirty shirt, as you slink to the kitchen to grab ice and pills.

You think you should grab a clean rag, but you worry about the questions it might raise. Your mother worries enough as is, and his face will bring enough interrogation in the morning without the evidence readily available.

He doesn’t say a word as you wet the T-shirt, as you wipe it under his nose. He doesn’t even ask you to be gentle, to not push so hard. He takes the ice from you, rest it against his lips. He swallows the pills dry, and you ball the shirt up, shove it into the bottom of your hamper.

He lingers, sits on the edge of your bed, and you don’t say anything either. Eventually, you put a movie on, strip down to your boxers and stretch out.

You wait, and just as he did when he was still in diapers, he slowly, _so slowly,_ makes his way until he’s laying beside you.

The bed is smaller, or he’s larger, so it’s a bit tighter. He’s warm against you, too warm in the summer heat, but neither of you move.

He’s asleep ten minutes in, and you stroke your fingers through sun bleached hair until you too, are asleep.

When you wake in the morning, you’re sweaty and he’s curled around you, and your arm is numb.

You pretend to sleep when he rises, and when his fingers trail down your spine it takes everything in you not to shiver. He kisses the knob where your neck and spine meet, and you can feel his smile when you don’t quite manage to suppress the groan.

\---

“So Gwaine dumped me.”

You grunt into your noodles, and he kicks you under the table. His foot though, lingers around your calf. You swallow and look up.

His eye is an ugly smear of purple and blue, and his nose will probably never be straight again, but at least his lips look better.

“‘M I supposed to ask why?”

Hurt flickers across his face, but he schools it behind childish contempt. “It’s what a good brother would do.”

You snort. “When have I ever been a good brother?”

His toes crawl up to your knee, dig into the soft flesh, and you swallow, hard. “He thinks I’m in love with someone else.”

“So he broke your face?”

He rest his foot on the chair, digging into your thigh. “No. He broke my face cause I called him a mommy’s boy and implied he fucks his sister.”

You raise your brows. It’s not exactly a clever insult, but it’s vicious. More vicious than you remember your brother being. “Seems a little… intense.”

“You haven’t asked if I’m in love with someone else.”

“Doesn’t really seem to be any of my business. I don’t appreciate him beating you, and if he touches you again I might hurt him. But your school yard drama really isn’t my problem.”

He stands up, his foot kicking you in his haste, and his chest heaves as he hovers between the table and the door. “Fuck you, Merls.”

His voice cracks, and you notice the wet spot on his shirt, but his shoulders are a hard line as he storms out.

\---

He hides from you for days. Almost a week. Until you slip into his room and pull the headphones out of his ears. “Arty.”

He bats your hands away, rolls over, away from you. “Come little Arty, speak to Merlinnie.”

“Fucking go to hell, dick.” But his voice has no fight, no anger.

You crawl into the bed and lay next to him, leaving space. But your fingers find his neck, twist in the hair there, massaging gently.

“Who do you love, Arty? Who has little brother’s heart?”

He shrugs, but he doesn’t pull away from you. If anything, he pushes his head into your hand. He sighs and your fingers are firm pressure against his scalp.

The sun moves in lazy patterns across his wall, and he moves slowly against your chest. You kiss the back of his head, the way mother did when you were sick, and if your arm finds it’s way over him, settles against his waist, he doesn’t complain. Just pushes back against your chest, warm and a little salty smelling.

\---

The first time he kisses you, he is drunk and you think he won’t remember, so you don’t contain yourself. You twist your hands in his shirt, sink your teeth into his lips, slide your tongue along his. He’s enthusiastic in his response, but he’s all teeth and his tongue is a heavy, bitter weight against your cheek. Too much lager, for someone who prefers vodka.

His hands find your waist, your back, the divot of your hips and you’re reminded of the differences between you. His hands are broad and firm, chapped. They know what they’re looking for and even as you pull away, as you take his breath into your lungs, use it to bolster your fleeing.

And you do, flee. You run as fast as you can back to your room, close the curtain and curse your mother for removing your door during your teenage rebellion. He doesn’t come home, but you still feel the heat of him and for the first time you reach down and you touch yourself to the thought of him.

The shame doesn’t come until you wake up, sticky and crusty, and he’s snoring down the hall.

\---

You manage to avoid him for three days while you’re ostensibly job hunting. You aren’t. You’re hiding in the erotic section of the library. You aren’t reading anything, this is just the best place to avoid people.

Who wants to mess with the creep in the erotic section?

Eventually though, you’re slipping into a cafe and he’s there, with his friends, and he sees you and you see him and the world gets still.

It’s so stupid, so cliche, and you hate yourself just a little bit for the way you feel your neck flush and your chest burn. He smiles at you, a wink no else sees, and you run as fast as you can.

\---

He finds you at home though, long after your mother has gone to sleep. He looks so small, so young, standing at the foot of your bed, twisting his sleep shirt around bruised knuckles.

Neither of you speak, but you pull the sheets down and he clambers in. This time you lie face to face, the moon causing his hair to glimmer. His breath smells like cinnamon toothpaste, and faintly, rum. It’s not a pleasant taste against your tongue, but you lick into his mouth.

You end up above him, balanced on your elbows. His hands, always his hands, find the swell of your ass. He doesn’t move them, leaves them pressed there gently, likes he’s afraid he might break you.

It is a funny thought, because for most of your life that’s how you regarded him. This precious sqwaling infant that barreled into your life as your father barreled out

This little fragile shadow gleaming in the sun that followed you down into valleys and up the tallest trees. You’ve caught him, more than once.

He’s never felt so perfect in your arms though, as he does now. You pin him there, hold him down with your weight.

He thrust against you first, a hard, damp pressure against your right thigh. You almost laugh at that, at the clumsiness of this god caught between your knees.

He comes undone, without you touching him, and you’ve never seen anything more beautiful. You’ve never been religious, but you’ll worship him.

He cleans himself up, and slinks back to his own room.

In the morning, when you sneak into his room, and reach to ruffle his hair, he gives you a distant look and pulls away.

It stings, makes your lungs constrict, but you don’t know why.

\---

Gwaine slips out of Arthur’s bedroom. He nods his head at you, slips his shades on, and saunters out the door.

When you look in, Arthur is curled in on himself. His shoulders shake, but when you try to rub him, he shoves you away. The sounds of his sobs echo through the house.

For the first time in your life you ache to feel the crunch of bones beneath your fist, feel the warm spurt of blood against your skin.

You’re reminded of the question he never answered.

\---

He’s drunk again, and school is about to begin. The two things aren’t exactly connected. But then again, neither is your job interview tomorrow connected with your naked swim today.

But summer is almost over, and he’s day drinking by the lake, sunglasses trained on your pale ass. Maybe you’re flaunting it, the leanness of your adult body, but your find yourself putting on a show.

Long, broad strokes carrying you back and forth across the lake. You turn over, floating. Trying to get the sun to paint you, the way it paints him in shades of summer.

His sunglasses slide down his nose, but he doesn’t turn his gaze away. You run a hand down your torso, feel the wet curls, feel the weight of his glazed eyes.

“Come little Arty, join me.”

“I’m pretty sure, Merlinnie, you’ve always been smaller than me.”

You splash him, and he swan dives in. The sun is high, the lake is empty, and his lips are still chapped, but they fit against yours perfectly.

\---

You take him that night, still smelling of lake water and suncream. You fit inside of him. Perfectly. You’re convinced he was made, just for you.

That’s what you thought, when he cried the first night and you cradled him in spindle-arms. When you slept beside him every night he had croup, and he settled his head against you chest.

You feel it differently now, this possessiveness. Because he _keens_ for you, like he never did for Gwaine. He trembles beneath the weight of your bones, his fingers dig into the small of your back, his teeth bite into your shoulders.

You move in sync, as one, this perfect joining that dims the stars and silences the angels. His breath is a symphony, his heart beat an orchestra. When he cries, when his body clenches around you, when he spurts against the curls of your belly you _know._

You were made for him, and he for you, and you will never let him go.

“Who are you in love with, Arty?”

“You, Merlinnie. Always you.”

 


End file.
